


Mr. Smith Will See You Now

by DancingTurtles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6307093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingTurtles/pseuds/DancingTurtles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Universe: Clint might not be an agent of SHIELD, but he can still carry a gun.  Or: Clint Barton is the oblivious Bond girl to Coulson’s 007.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Clint has a bad day, then it gets worse. 

Warnings: depictions of kidnapping, torture, and captivity

* * *

 

The rain drummed steadily against the windshield, smearing the brake lights ahead of them into a kaleidoscope of red. Phil’s face was absolutely expressionless, but the slow whitening of his knuckles around the steering wheel gave him away.

“You know what’s way more awesome than the Packers?” Clint watched carefully but didn’t pick up a reaction. “A shitty motel off the freeway.”

Nothing. He tried again. “We’ll have a sleepover, just you and me. Well, unless the Packers wanna join in.”

A slight twitch of his lips, and Clint had him. He piled it on, just because he could: “We’ll build a pillow fort, have some crazy sex, order in pizza, get even shittier diner food the next morning,” The grip on the wheel was relaxing. “Then we’ll drive home and tell everyone about our awesome and super expensive romantic weekend getaway. Sound good?”

It was hard to say. Phil had been planning their weekend for months in advance—he’d had to, since lately his boss had taken to calling him in at any hour or day Phil didn’t explicitly request off. At least once a week he was dragged off from Iowa (and that was a new one on Clint, who knew that financial consultants had to deal with cross-continental travel?), but he’d managed to pull some strings so that they could spend their first anniversary together. So Clint had gone all in, cancelling his Friday night bartending shift and taking advantage of the break before his 16-week EMS training started.

Of course, then they’d hit traffic an hour out of the city, and Phil’s 12-point itinerary had slipped out of his fingers.

Phil had a far-away look in his eyes. Clint trailed off, letting the silence drift in, edged by the slightly metallic tapping of water on the car roof. Instead of talking, he watched the slow flicker of shadows over Phil’s face—slightly clenched jaw, furrowed brow. Classic Phil when he was feeling stubborn: that was how he always looked when he was making up his mind. Once he did, there was no turning back.

Then Phil turned towards him.

 “I have a better idea.”

The next Monday Clint strolled in for check-in at the station, a brand new ring on his hand.

He liked telling the story, though it didn’t seem to surprise anyone who knew Clint longer than five minutes that he’d gotten hitched in an off-ramp casino with a drugstore ring. What was surprising was that it was Phil’s idea—hopelessly straight-laced, organized, responsible Phil, tying the knot with a former circus act and felon. Of course, Clint didn’t usually share that part of the story, preferring to let people fill in the blanks—or what Phil had told him the next morning when Clint had asked, giddy and full of hot air, like his feet were about to lift off the ground.

“You make me feel impulsive,” he’d said, eyes crinkling at the corners where his crow’s feet would form later.

Clint would remember those words for a long time.

* * *

 

_Beep._

“Clint, this is Phil. Some problems came up, so I’ll be in Atlanta for a few more days. If you need to reach me you can call the hotel number—I left it on the frid- _beep_.”

Clint ended the voice mail and stowed his cellphone back into his pocket. He tapped his fingers against his desk, ignoring the blank monitor, then pulled it out again.

_R u still mad about last week?_

When Phil didn’t respond after 1, 2 minutes, Clint forced himself to put the phone away. He glanced over the next few desks, gaze finally landing on the corner office. The frosted glass kept him from getting a good view, but he couldn’t see any person-shaped shadows inside. His boss must have left early then.

“Hey, Barton—you get the copy of Commissioner’s report? From May?” Brock Rumlow leaned into Clint’s cubicle, setting down a coffee mug right onto said copy. “Can you believe that shit?”

Clint rolled his eyes. Detective Rumlow was always pissed about something, but this one had been a constant rage-filled rant for the past three months. Still, the guy had a point. “T’s the way things are going. I heard they cut down funding for West coast departments when the Fantastic 4 debuted.”

“Yeah, cause a buncha West coast liberals liked having blondies in spandex instead of real cops protecting their shit. But this is the NYPD—who the hell is getting their panties all wet about the Avengers?”

_Try everyone_ , Clint thought. You couldn’t get anywhere downtown without seeing at least three kiosks selling their merchandise. Not that Tony Stark’s face wasn’t already plastered onto anything and everything; but now every Avenger had their own T-shirt line. It was ridiculous—and bad for the NYPD, judging from the report’s detailing of a five-year-funding plan that included cutting their force to half the current number of officers. Apparently the Avengers would pick up the slack.

But Clint wasn’t in the mood to play along. “Well, let’s see how the Avengers like handling parking tickets.” Clint said, playing it casual. “It’ll blow over.”

“Like hell. The F4 have been out for years, and who gives a shit about cops in California now? Nobody—everybody wants a damn superhero.”

Clint felt a buzz and reflexively checked his phone. The screen was black, making Clint feel like an idiot. He didn’t need all this shit about his job being replaced on top of Phil, _again_ , being, being…

“I’m heading off early. Got some stuff to pick up.” Clint turned off his computer. “You hanging around here?”

“Got the late shift.” Rumlow checked his watch. “I’m on ‘till 11—want to get a beer after?”

He’d been hanging out with Rumlow and some other guys after work for the past few months, surprised to find that though the guy had seemed like an asshole when they’d first met two years ago, he’d grown on Clint. It was nice to have a cop to talk to—Clint had always been a little quiet, preferring the company of the few people (one person) he trusted over going out to bars with a bunch of dudes. But it had been nice, talking with someone who really _got it_ , could really understand the stress of police work.   

But then he imagined how it would play out: watching the guys hit on bar chicks while he sipped on shitty beer, hanging around until Rumlow bailed out with a random barfly, then heading back in the dark to an empty house. His other option was to skip right ahead to that last step, but then at least he wouldn’t have to watch someone else get lucky.

Clint sighed. “Nah, got stuff to do. Next week?”

Once Rumlow took off, finding Wilson and immediately laying into him about the report, Clint pulled out his phone and typed in his code. There still weren’t any messages. He kept staring until the screen finally went black again, apparently less patient than him.

Whatever. Clint threw the rest of the papers into his bag, ignoring the slight tearing noise when he forced it closed. He took a moment to take a deep breath, ignoring the twinge that always gave him on the right side.  

The house was quiet when he got back. Out of habit he glanced down the hall, which ended in Phil’s office. If Phil was home then he’d sometimes leave the door open, though Clint rarely ventured inside unless he needed some stamps or shit.

The door was closed. As it had been for the last two weeks. _Idiot._

He’d only been home for a few minutes when the doorbell rang.

“Huh.” He turned and looked out the window to see some guy, slouching in a bad suit with a heavy briefcase, on the porch. Too underdressed to be a missionary, but that didn’t rule out the other religious freaks Clint sometimes saw patrolling the neighborhood. They always came by at least once a week, though Phil usually handled them since Clint’s method of slamming the door in their faces wasn’t ‘neighborhood-friendly’, apparently.

He was still in uniform, but whatever. He swung open the door, hoping that his face looked unfriendly enough to scare the guy off. “What?”

“Hey, man.” The guy smiled wide, white teeth gleaming. Salesman. “We’re offering free carpet shampoos, honest to god free, to show off our new product line.” A briefcase popped up and Clint clumsily took the business card and pamphlet. “Would you be interested? It’ll be fifteen minutes tops, just a way to get our name out there.”

“Uh…I’m a little busy right now.” He waved vaguely back into the house, letting the salesman fill in the blanks. 

  
“Is anyone else home, then, who would be interested? It really wouldn’t take long.”

Clint shrugged noncommittally, noting the van, white, Ford model X, parked a little into his driveway that probably belonged to this guy. Behind Clint his cellphone started ringing on the table. He glanced quickly at the screen—Phil’s cell number. He turned back to the man. “I gotta run, but best of luck.” Clint turned back into the house, moving to pull the door closed behind him.

A click, and his right side exploded in pain.

“Fuck—!” A set of arms caught him on his way to the floor, knees buckling when all the muscles in his legs seized. He forced himself forwards, away from his attackers (and there were three now, _what the hell_ ), but they followed him in and pinned him down. The metal points of the taser were still digging into his skin, forcing his body into a rictus of pain.

Hands on his shoulders, forcing his arms back. A ziptie bit into his wrists. Finally, the taser was removed and Clint sucked in a deep breath.  He tried not to vomit, tried to make out the faces through the black spots that he couldn’t blink away, but before he could get his feet under himself the biggest guy hauled him up and forced him into a chokehold.

Clint struggled hard, but the black spots grew bigger, and bigger, until finally everything was black and deep. The last thing he saw was a hand picking up his cellphone.

* * *

 

_God, he was fucking tired._

_Must have had a late shift the night before, for him to feel like this: like he had one foot in the grave, ready to sink down into the bed and sleep like the dead. It didn't last, of course; not with Phil jabbing at him, elbow going deep into his side and digging in._

_"That hurts, dammnit--"_

_The elbow kept digging. Then Phil's voice: "It's time to wake up, Clint."_

 

He woke up when someone kicked him in the leg.

“Wake _up_ , Mr. Barton.” Something thick and hard jabbed him in the shin—probably a boot, though Clint didn’t open his eyes. His forehead was throbbing like crazy, as if he was dehydrated, and he knew that it would only get worse if there was any light.

A pause, then the speaker kicked him, hard, in the calf. Clint snapped forward, eyes opening, only to jerk to a stop when his arms caught against the restraints pinning him to a chair. He struggled against them, but both his arms and legs were clamped down, giving him only a few inches of wiggle room.

“What the hell?” Clint looked around the tiny room, maybe 20 feet square and empty except for him, the jerk kicking him, and some other guy standing a few feet back behind a cheap foldout table. There was some kind of metal box on the table, with long, curled wires connecting it to his chair. He swallowed hard, coughing against the dryness of his mouth and throat. How long had he been out?  

The jerk snapped his fingers, dragging Clint’s gaze back to him. “We apologize for the rough treatment, Mr. Barton, but concussions tend to make the mind wander—and I would like to have your absolute attention.” He smiled, and Clint took the opportunity to look the guy over. No mask, so either he didn’t care that a police officer knew his face, or he didn’t think Clint would be leaving this place alive.

“You are currently in the custody of AIM,” He paused, gaze lingering on Clint’s face. Apparently he didn’t find what he was looking for, so he continued. “You have been brought here because we have reason to believe that you have necessary information.”

Clint had been trained for shit like this. He didn’t work a lot of high profile cases after that fuck-up a few years ago, but information was always worth something to somebody, and there was something about crime that made people desperate, desperate enough to kidnap a police officer. Whatever the hell AIM was (or even if that was their real name), he’d been trained in a standard response.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Clint shifted, felt a sharp pain from his side. He remembered now, the taser when he’d opened the door, the van. He’d been taken somewhere.  

“Oh, but I think you do.” There was a clicking sound to Clint’s left, where the other guy was. He was tapping on that machine.

A final tap, and the room began to fill with a buzzing noise, slowly but steadily increasing in intensity. Clint shifted again, anticipation building in his gut as the noise became louder and louder.

“We want everything you have on SHIELD.”

_Huh?_

The buzz built to a shriek. Clint braced himself, but the sudden shock rolling through his limbs, emanating from every metal restraint, caused his body to clench and jerk, spasming as wave after wave of electricity rolled through him. He tried to scream but couldn’t get a breath in: his throat was closing, diaphragm clenching down so hard he thought his ribs might break.

Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Clint slumped against the restraints and gasped for air, ignoring the blood leaking from his nose. His fingers kept jerking absently, tapping away against the chair’s armrests, fingernails scraping the metal.

“I am not a cruel man, Mr. Barton. There’s no need to repeat that, as long as you cooperate. Tell me what you know about SHIELD.”

“I—I don’t know anything about them. I don’t work for them.” Frantically, Clint raced through everything he knew about them—but he was drawing a blank. There wasn’t anything to _know_ about them, except what any civilian would know. And that wasn’t what these guys—AIM?—were looking for.

But Clint gave it a shot anyway, because the longer he talked, the less time they’d spend shocking him, he hoped. “Just—they’re behind the Avengers initiative. International, but probably based in the US. Separate from the CIA or FBI—they go after world-threatening emergencies, not the domestic stuff.”

His torturer looked unimpressed. He gestured to the other man, and the clicking started again.

“How is that useful for me, Mr. Barton? Give me something I can use—mission reports, identities, locations. What are their ties to the New York Police Department?”

Clint’s gaze flicked around the room, looking for what he didn’t know. He had no idea what the guy was talking about—SHIELD didn’t _have_ any official ties to Clint, barely even to the NYPD. Nothing made sense—why would they think Clint knew anything? Who the hell were these guys?

The clicking grew into the buzz, and the buzz into a roar.

And oh god, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt--he ground his teeth until he tasted blood, but it didn’t stop. The man in the white coat just kept his fingers on the dial, calmly waiting for Clint’s answer.

“I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!” He finally screamed, hoping that that would just make it _end_ , for the love of god, and there must have been a fucking miracle because the pain suddenly ended. He slumped bonelessly deeper into the chair, gasping for breath.

“How do you know Phillip Coulson?”

And just like that, he forgot the pain.

“What?”

“Phillip J. Coulson, Mr. Barton.” The interrogator smiled thinly, apparently encouraged by Clint’s response. “Agent of SHIELD.”

He thought of Phil. Phil, whose favorite color is beige and has five coffee mugs in that color. Phil used a different one for each day of the week, always sitting at the upper righthand corner of the placemat Phil rested the newspaper on. Phil had titanium-framed reading glasses for the newspaper, and a separate pair for long hours in front of the computer when he doesn’t want to wear his progressives. Phil, who he hadn’t seen since their fucking awful fight a week ago, and Clint hadn’t said goodbye, and his chest is squeezing so tight that his mouth fills with bile.

“We know that you’re connected to him,” the interrogator pressed, snapping Clint out of it. “Your name is listed as being under his surveillance. Curious how unprotected you were, then. Just tell us, how are you connected to him?”

They’re married. They’ve been together for over 10 years.

Lying—he’s lying, trying to get at something. Clint didn’t know what, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered compared to the sinking feeling in his stomach.

_They’re gonna come after Phil._

He imagined Phil, in pain. Clint wanted to throw up.

“He’s…he’s someone I knew once,” Clint invented wildly, trying to come up with something that the interrogator would believe. He was still stuck on the ‘agent of SHIELD’ part, but if that’s what the interrogator thought, then…“From the police academy.”

“You’re lying.” Another shock down his arm and into his spine. He rocked backward, feeling his limbs alternating being rigid and spastic. Fuckfuck _fuck_

“I’m not—fuck, stop that! He’s just some guy from the academy, I don’t know what he has to do with SHIELD!” Words spilling out of him, anything but the truth—that Phil is his husband, that by getting at him they can get to Clint, that he’d tell them anything if they brought Phil here. The electricity cut off again and Clint sucked in deep, greedy breaths. The interrogator was frowning now, unsatisfied with Clint’s answer.

“Pathetic. Why would a SHIELD agent be in a municipal police academy? And why would a distant acquaintance be under the surveillance of a Level 6 SHIELD agent?” Clint didn’t know what level 6 meant—there had to be a mistake. He didn’t know—he’d thought, they wanted something from Clint, something to do with an old case. He didn’t understand why they kept bringing up SHIELD. He didn’t know—he couldn’t think, not with his brain getting fried every few minutes. He needed time to figure this out.

“Unless he wanted to recruit you.” Judgmental eyes turned down at him, assessing and finding him wanting. “But you have no special skills that SHIELD could use.”

Clint had heard worse. But their attention was back on him. “Well, fuck if I know.” Another sharp shock, enough to make his heart beat wildly in his throat before subsiding. After the machine cut off all he could hear was his own panting…then, a slow ringing in his ears.

“I think that you’re lying.” The interrogator nodded to himself. “Withholding information at the very least.” Another thoughtful pause and glance at the machine. “A pity that prolonging this session any further will cause your heart to fail.”

Then, just like that, Clint was dismissed. “Take him back to his cell.” The guard snapped to attention and moved toward Clint. “We can deal with him again tomorrow.” He turned once more to Clint. “And in the meantime, you can consider whether protecting Coulson’s secrets is worth your life.”

Clint could barely feel the hands touching his arms, pulling the electrodes off and the needle out of his arm. He recognized the symptoms of shock setting in: numbing of the skin, shallow breathing, sweat beading up all along his back. He didn’t protest as he was dragged to an empty cell, almost comforting in comparison to the room he’d just left, and when he was finally left alone (but not really alone, of course) he slumped into a corner.

They left him alone for hours, hours that Clint spent carefully breathing in and out, resting as much as he could. But that gave him too much time to think—to think about why the hell they thought he was linked to SHIELD, and what it had to do with Phil.

 

* * *

 

 

Two years into Clint’s time as a junior officer in the NYPD, a drug dealer shot him in the chest.

Getting shot wasn’t really a rite of passage for police officers, despite what most laypeople Clint knows seem to believe. People weren’t slapping him on the back afterwards like he’d passed the rookie test; from what he can remember, everyone was a mess of paperwork (so, so much paperwork), angry calls between the insurance companies, news reporters, Phil’s hands steadying him, and so, so many questions about whether he’d fired his gun, who’d fired first, what did the suspects say beforehand, could he remember anything that happened afterward. Even that had been drowned out by the punched-out sound of bullets fired, the sharp whistle through air before Ramirez had fallen; he began to sleep with pillows over his head to cover the sound.

Phil’s quiet breathing was the only thing that helped him sleep.

Clint didn’t remember much. It wasn’t until weeks later, well into the first round of physical therapy, that he’d allowed himself to really think about it. How his team had stormed into the building once the warrant had been issued for the small-time drug dealer who lived there. How they’d ended up surrounded on all sides by the drug dealer’s men (later, of course, he’d learned that they’d been fed bad information from the start of it all). How they’d fired first, or maybe it was Officer Ramirez who fired first, or Clint himself. Either way the ending was the same—everyone on his team dead and Clint well on the way, gasping through the blood pooling in his throat and pouring out his nose, knowing that he’d die of suffocation well before the bullet lodged deep beneath his collarbone could finish the job. 

Everything after that was a complete blank.

He’d asked around, later. Apparently he was saved when back-up from a separate department arrived and forced their way in, subduing the dealer’s men and collecting Clint along with the bodies of three fellow officers. He’d tried to find out more about the men who’d come back for him, because even if it was just their job, it still meant…something. He needed to at least thank them.

But then it had come out—it was SHIELD. Not the first time the shadowy government organization had  been heard of in New York, but the first (and not the last, definitely not the last) time it had directly intervened in a local police action. Everyone had questions for Clint after the news broke, from distant acquaintances to his own partners, people wondering why SHIELD was getting involved in police work, what it meant for their authority. Even his own chief had gotten in on it, asking Clint directly if he was working with SHIELD. That had hurt—men and women he’d known for years, asking if his loyalty was to some shadowy rumor instead of to his own flesh and blood people. It had finally died down once it became clear that Clint’s involvement was only a coincidence; in the next few months, SHIELD began to hook its claws into police departments in every state nationwide, buying off people and cutting out the guys with enough character to turn them down.

But the one thing Clint couldn’t stop thinking about was why SHIELD had gotten involved in that first incident. Low-level drug runners were never SHIELD’s jurisdiction, even now in their big brother mode. It was weird—no one was really asking questions except for Clint. It took months for him to finally drop the subject, sick to death of vague answers, Phil’s quiet discouragement, and everyone telling him to move on.

In the cold cell, a bright fluorescent light above buzzing like flies, feeling the old ache of the bullet wound beneath his collar bone somehow worse than everything else, Clint was finally thinking about it again. Because, if they were telling the truth, if Phil really was--

_That's what they want you to think._

 

* * *

 

“Are you going to be more cooperative today, Mr. Barton?”

The interrogator smiled genially at him. Clint glared back.

“No? That is a pity.”

Another day, another round on the machine. Clint screamed, wailed, vomited on himself, but he didn’t say anything—not because he was brave or resilient, but because he didn’t have anything to say. The Sanchez case, detective addresses, names of judges—all the things he knew, they didn’t ask about. Instead, it was Phil, Phil, Phil, over and over again, with less patience and longer twists of the dial each time he failed to answer in the way his interrogators wanted. His interrogators had made a mistake, though, because Clint had nothing useful to tell them—and he was too tired, too in pain to lie. 

And then back into the cell where Clint crouched in the corner to keep off the cold concrete, swaying as the lack of food and water dragged him down. He tried to sleep, but the overhead fluorescent lights illuminated every square inch of the cell, and he could have sworn that they got brighter every time he closed his eyes. The only thing good about the cell was that he was alone—because it was getting pretty obvious that these guys, AIM, they were after Phil.

_I’m sorry_ , he kept thinking, over and over, _I never meant to put you in danger._

That was a risk of his job—every cop worried about their family, about whether the enemies they made on the job might consider stepping things up. Clint had had it easier, since there was only Phil, but these guys _knew his name_ , they could track him down, they could…

But the things they had said, the questions they had asked…everything sounded flipped, as if Phil was everything and Clint didn’t matter at all. He’d been taught to ignore information any interrogators gave him because when you were desperate it was so easy to hang onto every word, but it wasn’t just the questions, it was the way they treated him and the way they talked about Phil. As if Clint was some kind of simpleton, a child who still thought Santa was real, and Phil was the indulgent parent.

Or maybe it was just in Clint’s head, because his headache had been getting worse and worse over the past three days, along with the throbbing laceration in his side where a knife had gotten him earlier, and his hearing kept on fading out. Three days was a long time to go without medical treatment when you had these kinds of injuries, and he wasn’t being fed or watered, or sleeping, or—

Clint was knocked onto his side when the whole building _rocked_ under him. The floor shuddered once, twice, then the furthest wall from him collapsed into a pile of rubble. He slowly pulled himself onto his feet, one hand against his side, blinking when bright LED lights filled the cell.

“Avengers, coming through—anybody order pizza?”

 

 


	2. Meet-Cute

Clint met Phil Coulson at the local community college when he was 23 years old.

This was in his post-Hawkeye days, when he’d finally figured out that the guys at the circus weren’t just a little rowdy, toeing the line now and then—no, they had been full-blown criminals willing to silence some dumbass teenager who’d seen too much.

So he’d run, leaving everything behind: his old photos of him and Barney, his Hawkeye costume, even the petty cash he’d been saving up for something special. In hindsight, running had been—well, hindsight was always 20/20.  Maybe he could have called in the cops, told them what the swordmaster had been dealing from town to town and who the people they’d hurt were. Later, when he was finally given access to the arrest report and saw what they had done to that family a year after he’d left, the pictures had weighed on him.  

But that would all come later. Back in ’98 he was still making the transition from circus freak to actual citizen, with a social security number and everything. And hadn’t that been fun to figure out. There had been counselors at the homeless shelter near the Greyhound stop that Clint had ended up camping out in, and they had helped him fill out the neverending forms and made calls for him that he couldn’t make without cracking the phone in frustration. It had worked out in the end, and Clint had spent at least a couple minutes just staring at what they’d dug up: birth certificate, SS card, driver’s license. It had been a long time since he’d seen his real name written down. It had looked more official, more responsible, something a dumbass like him couldn’t possibly live up to.  

But that was the name he’d used to enroll for a few classes at the community college closest to the group home he was staying in. Clint had tried to choose useful classes, given that his bartending job paid exactly his tuition and his low-income housing rent so he couldn’t afford to take ‘poetry-for-French-people’ or whatever. ‘Financial Planning’ had seemed useful.

So in August he’d walked in, casually grabbed a seat in the back of the small, dusty room, and laid eyes on the most bland, middle-aged, white guy he’d ever seen.  

For real, this was something he’d tease Phil about for years to come. Every lecture he wore the exact same thing—a lightly pinstriped button-down, black suit jacket, and matching pants. Sometimes Professor Coulson (and dear lord, that hit some buttons for him later on) would shake things up with a tie that had a stripe on it. That was it.

And his looks hadn’t helped much either. Phil had always looked like what he was: a middle-aged (though he was only 35 when they first met), balding, white-guy accountant. Sparse brown hair, beige skin tone—he’d be a terrible circus performer, Clint had decided there and then. The guy didn’t have any features that helped an audience remember you, and _that_ was what you needed to be a good performer: to be remembered.

After the first couple of lectures that Clint had yawned his way through, he’d gotten an email through his school account (learning how to use a computer had been a whole new world for him) from a Mr. Phillip J. Coulson, requesting a meeting regarding ‘concerns’. That had smelled a lot like the last time Clint had experienced formal education. Up until 5th grade when Clint had fallen through the cracks, every year teachers would send home notes like clockwork, always unread by anyone except Clint. Lack of attention. Picking fights. Underweight. Angry. Dumb.

He’d ignored it.

They kept on coming though. Every Friday night, at exactly 8PM, Coulson’s name popped up in his inbox. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Clint barely passed his midterm, having spent a long week beforehand trying to figure out compound interest on debt, which apparently meant that you owed money because you owed money, and making fake household budgets (depressing), and a million other things that Clint didn’t know how to do and, it was becoming rapidly apparent, would never have a use for. When he got it back, in class with all the other students, there had been a note on top. In red.

_Please see me after class._

Being talked to like a child, when he was a fucking full grown man--fine. He went. Coulson’s office had been ridiculously tiny, buried at the end of the main college building and no doubt shared with two other teachers. Coulson had been in there well before Clint arrived, elbow deep in paperwork with a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose.

“Mr. Barton, there you are—please, have a seat.”

He’d sat, squeezing his knees behind the desk when the wall blocked him from pulling out the chair anymore. A long five minutes passed before Clint had snapped: “Well?”

And then Coulson had looked up, making steady eye contact with Clint. That wasn’t something Clint was used to. There was something about Clint that made people look away—teachers, the school nurse. The swordmaster. Barney.

“I have concerns about your commitment to this class. Based on the past few lectures I’ve noticed that you don’t take notes, you don’t seem to pay attention, and you don’t study.” While Clint processed that, because seriously, who the hell did this guy think he was—“Why are you taking this class if you don’t intend to learn from it?”

Clint had gritted his teeth then, knowing that he was falling back on anger, a familiar habit. “I passed your midterm, _sir_. I don’t see what the problem is.”

Another long look, then Coulson drew forward and clasped both hands on the desk surface. “The purpose of this class is to teach people financial responsibility. This is a skill that many people fail to hone, especially those who are choose to enroll in a class such as this. As a result, it is my responsibility to ensure that you are getting something out of this class—which I don’t believe you are. So tell me, Mr. Barton, why are you here?”

He’d paused at that because, really, what was the answer? Why was Clint enrolled in a community college when he’d never entered middle school? What was the end goal?

“I don’t know.”

And that was the truth. He’d had some generic ideas of success, the 9-5 with a house and kids. College had seemed like the best way to go about achieving that goal, he’d reasoned, but when Professor Coulson had laid it all out like that, it just sounded stupid.

It was an honest answer, at least, even if it was a dumb one. Clint always appreciated honesty.

Coulson had seemed startled, sort of, by the admission, and then his face had changed—just a little smile, crooked on one side. The laugh lines around his eyes tightened a bit. It wasn’t like he was laughing at Clint (something that Clint could recognize on sight), it was more like Coulson was laughing with him, at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Of Clint’s life.

“Well, we can work on that.”

And maybe Clint had smiled back, because Coulson was a man with a plan and maybe Clint could follow him, since Clint wasn’t much of a leader but he knew what loyalty meant; and the next few months had maybe been more of the same—Coulson being a gold mine of advice, real advice that actually helped, and Clint putting effort into doing things he’d never done at the circus like writing and thinking about what he read; and maybe when Coulson stopped teaching at the community college they’d stayed in contact while Clint got his associate’s, then his bachelor’s at the state university, and later on when he’d entered the police academy and graduated at the top of his class two years later Phil (and he’d been Phil for a long time by then) had been in the audience cheering Clint’s name.

Phil was always in Clint's corner. 

 

* * *

 

“What, no welcome wagon?” Ironman stepped into the room, ignoring the crunch of steel beneath his…feet, Clint guessed. The smooth metallic faceplate turned towards Clint, impossible to read.

Tony Stark, billionaire and mad scientist. Clint remembered watching the press conference on TV from Rumlow’s couch, how all the guys around him groaned at the name. _Ironman_ , Rumlow pronounced slowly, with relish, _from a guy who’d pass out halfway through a 5K, you think his girlfriend made his costume?_ ; everyone laughing while Clint nervously looked around, uncomfortable in new places.   

After the Chitauri incident, the laughter didn’t come as easily.  

Apparently he’d been drifting, because Ironman snapped his fingers, loud from the metallic fingers.

“Last train out and you can’t sleep here, sir. You coming with?”  

Clint narrowed his eyes but dragged himself shakily to his feet, warding off any assistance from the robot man. “Depends on where we’re going.”

“Well, SHIELD medical eventually for you, but in the meantime we’re sticking you guys in one of the underground labs. Should hold up while the Hulk scares out all the scientists.” Ironman turned and strode heavily back out of the cell, leaving Clint to scamper along in his wake. His legs protested—he’d been sitting in one position for too long—but he kept on going, if only to avoid being carried out like some damsel in distress. It wasn’t until they reached the lab that Clint began to detect the tell-tale signs of blood loss—nausea, dizziness. There was a good chance that he would throw up on someone, soon.

“Shit.” Ironman had stopped in the corridor. Clint didn’t know what was going on, but maybe his robot eyes could see something that he couldn’t.

An odd, tinny noise came from somewhere in front of them, whining as it picked up in frequency. Ironman backed up a bit, then suddenly pulled something off of his shoulder and threw it at Clint.

“I’ve gotta handle this—take a left here and follow the instructions over the radio!” Clint caught the device (more cell phone than the radio he normally used) and darted to the side. Just in time, apparently, when the whining snapped into a roar behind him. He got about twenty yards down the long corridor before slowing—he would have gone further but he couldn’t seem to catch his breath in the increasingly smoky air. There was some kind of rumbling noise behind him and he staggered forward, certain that somebody was following him, or maybe the ceiling above was collapsing; all he was certain of was that he wasn’t safe. But it wasn’t until he reached an empty conference room (coffee pot on the counter still half-full) that he stopped and looked back.

There was nobody behind him. Clint let himself linger, unsure of whether going forward or back was better, but then the radio in his hand began to crackle.

“—Ironman? We need your position ASAP, Hulk is coming down on the East wing hard and fast—”

Clint froze.

Back in the police academy, they’d been trained in handling coercive situations, interrogation, blackmail. There were textbooks on it, even, and there’d been advice that he’d sworn to heart: Stay calm. Don’t identify your loved ones. And above all, don’t believe anything they say. So he hadn’t _really_ believed his interrogators. Maybe entertained the thought for a bit, but really? Phil as a SHIELD agent? It had been easier to tell himself that it was all bullshit, even with all the evidence that he’d been faced with.

But that was Phil’s voice, on the radio, and he knew that he couldn’t fool himself anymore.

Clint hesitated for about a minute, then brought the radio up to his face.

“Ironman’s busy right now. It’s just me.”

Silence. Maybe Phil hadn’t recognized his voice…but of course, he was wrong.  

“ _Clint_ …” Phil breathed out, staticky through the radio. He sounded desperate, in a way Clint had never heard before.

_Is this really you, Phil?_

“I need for you to trust me.”

Clint didn’t respond. That was stupid, of course, rapid communication was essential to make any op work. But he didn’t know how to respond to that. He trusted _Phil_ , his husband, but this was so far out of the ballpark that he was flying blind.

“Please, Clint—I’ll explain everything later, but you _have to move, now!_ ”

Something about the tone made Clint throw himself backwards, just barely getting out of the conference room before the windows along the walls all shattered. The rapid fire of gunshots suddenly filled his ears and Clint hit the floor. The wall above him was shuddering under the impact and bits of paint scattered over him.

“All lower levels of the building have been compromised, so you have to go up.” He was practically shouting to be heard over the gunfire. “There is an unsecured emergency staircase thirty meters east of your position—if you can reach it then you’ll have a clear path to the roof.” Phil spoke rapidly, kind of like how stockbrokers made their deals in movies. It was hard to concentrate on his voice; between his injuries and life-changing revelations, he wasn’t at his best.

“….Clint, please! You have to move _now_.”

He moved. Flung open the door at the end of the hall to find a set of old, creaky metal stairs behind it. Forced himself up, first two steps at a time then slowing to one when his legs threatened to collapse under him. Rounding corner after corner, counting the number of flights out loud to distract himself from the increasing frequency of the dull vibrations that almost shook him off his feet. It felt as though the whole building was going to collapse at any moment, regardless of whether or not he was still in it.

At one point he stopped, leaning heavily against another white-painted wall. His hands left a trail of grime and blood against it, but he didn’t have the energy to check on his side where he had been stabbed. It was bad, and checking it wasn’t going to do anything besides demoralize him.

“Where are you?”

Clint stared at the radio, which he had clipped into his belt. He tried to imagine where Phil was—in SHIELD headquarters, maybe, or in a safe house nearby. Headset and reading glasses on, wearing one of those suits he always bought on sale at Men’s Warehouse. Probably on the comm lines for all of the Avengers in the building—he’d been talking to Ironman earlier and had sounded pretty familiar with him. Clint laughed a bit—because if Phil was going to be a secret SHIELD agent then of course he’d be the one handling the Avengers.

“You don’t have a lot of time, Clint. You have at max five minutes to reach the roof.”

“Got it.” Maybe Phil could hear the laugh (really, he couldn’t stop at this point), since he kept talking:

“I promise you that I will explain everything, but you have to get out of there first.”

“Uh-huh.” Seriously. Secret agent man. Clint felt giddy enough to choke. 

“Clint…” And then he could almost see it, the way that Phil rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows whenever they had a fight. He always told Phil that he’d get wrinkles there, but Phil always waved him off. _I knew I’d get wrinkles when I married you._

“We can work on this, okay? But you have to do this, _now_.”

There was something familiar about that. Clint fell back, letting his entire back fall against the wall, and tried to remember.

Right. That was what Phil had said, when they first met. Back when Phil was still teaching at the community college…but no, SHIELD wasn’t going to recruit their agents from some dusty last-chance school in the middle of nowhere. Phil was probably undercover there.

A surge of anger flooded through him, driving him off the wall again. Maybe it was naïve, but the idea that Clint had never met the _real_ Phil, that he’d fallen in love with and married a fucking secret identity, was enough to force him up the last few staircases. Hell if he was going to die here and let Phil get away with this—they were going to talk about this, face to face, and even if the answers were painful then at least he’d have something real.  

Finally, he reached the end of the staircase. The door in front of him had a little circle cut into it. The daylight shining through it was the first that he’d seen in three days.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the reviews! They're very encouraging to read, and I appreciate any feedback on this chapter!


	3. Clint, meet SHIELD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint spends some time in medical. Phil's not there.

Clint had asked Phil about his job before.

“Well, usually I start the day by pulling the accounts of our major clients to check for any anomalies—most of them use Quickbooks, but I like to run the numbers through our in-house statistical program to look for anomalies, like overdrafts, unusual transactions, the works. At 11AM we’ll do a round table based on how the S&P is looking, usually ending with a comparison to our quarterly predictions to see how good our software is, then…”

So Clint had put a stop to that pretty early on. Especially once Phil stopped teaching; the stint at the community college had been a favor, Phil had explained over dinner a few weeks after Clint had started at the academy, and not a regular thing. Teaching for underserved communities was a responsibility best left to those who best understood both the principles of personal finance and the practicalities of translating those concepts to people with little educational background and difficulty socioeconomic situations, Phil had explained. At that point Phil’s perfectionism was well-known to Clint so it hadn’t surprised him that he’d quit teaching—the guy had been a great personal counselor, but a pretty mediocre and uninspiring professor.

“How kind of you,” Phil had grinned, between sips of coffee, “Glad to know I made an impression.”

Clint had looked at the ridiculously delicate way Phil always held coffee cups, the same way he held pens, underlying the key points in Clint’s application to the academy. Especially the extra piece Clint had to write to explain the felony charges—Phil had spent hours nitpicking over it with his pen, scratching out words and rewriting them in a loopy red scrawl, over and over again. Shaping Clint’s mistakes into something understandable, and in that moment Clint had finally been sure that maybe he’d made mistakes, but they were forgivable ones.

He smiled back. “You sure did.”

When Phil had been transferred to the New York office, Clint had followed without question. Phil wanted to do it, Clint was able to make the transfer without any problems, so there had never been a reason to doubt it. Even after the shooting, and the long hospital stay afterward, and the self-doubt that had crawled up like an old friend—he’d been warned, how the job could split couples apart, how in sickness and in health were two different things, but it didn’t _change_ anything.

But then the alien attack on New York had happened. And that was when the change started.  

* * *

 

 

[Tzzt]

 

[Tzzzbarzzz]

 

[Barton?]

Clint jerked awake. Doing so set off a constricting ache around his torse, causing him to dry heave a little, which forced him to contract his torso even more—he ended up spending five minutes just easing himself back down and getting his breathing back to normal. It took a while for his nerves to stop screaming at him, but when that finally stopped he realized that there was some kind of dull ringing in his ears, which were pulsing red deep in his head.

“Can you hear me, Mr. Barton?”

Some chick in a white coat, pale and with a remarkably featureless face that wasn’t helped by the rimless glasses, was slowly sounding out words for Clint.

“We’ve placed a type of hearing aid on each side to compensate for damage to both auditory nerves. They’re calibrated at a manufacturer moderate setting right now, but once you’re stabilized we’ll have you spend some time with our rehabilitation team to program them for your lifestyle.” Clint fuzzily watched her mouth move, trying to figure out why everything sounded so different. Maybe it was the weird hum in the background, like a tuning fork, that made her words sound muffled. He shook his head a little, trying to get the water out of his ears, but it didn’t help.

Clint vaguely recalled his hearing fading in and out on the helicopter ride to…well, wherever he was now, but once they got to the hospital (whatever you would call this place), he’d been more distracted by the hands pushing deeply at his torso and abdomen. He reached up to scratch at one ear only for the doctor to pull his hands down again.

“Please avoid touching them until the anesthetic wears off. We’ll be repeating a CT scan on you this afternoon to confirm correct placement of the devices as well as to monitor you for internal bleeding. You probably don’t remember going through surgery this morning, but the penetrating wound on your right side has been stabilized and sutured, so we expect a full recovery. There is also some lingering neural trauma and you may notice some hand and foot tremors, though these are likely temporary. This will also be addressed by your rehabilitation team.”

“Don’t have a rehab team.” The department didn’t have one, though Clint guessed that maybe they worked with a hospital for stuff like that, officers with permanent damage. His tongue felt number and he was pretty sure that he was slurring his words, though apparently she understood him.

“SHIELD Medical provides full services for these kinds of incidents, Mr. Barton.” The doctor was writing something down on her clipboard. “I’ll let you rest for now and we’ll wake you back up for the scan in a few hours.”

Then she was up and moving, faster than Clint’s drugged out mind could track. He coughed and reached out, ignoring the trailing iv from his right hand.

“Wait…my hearing, is that temporary too?”

Her face took on a flat, clinical expression. It reminded him of the AIM guy.

“No. You will likely be wearing hearing aids for the rest of your life. But with the aids, your hearing should be at least near-normal, and SHIELD provides only the best equipment available.”

Clint swallowed, trying not to think about the pieces of metal jammed into his ears right now. His thinking was fuzzy and slow, like his teachers used to tell him, but there was something important that he needed to tell her. “Can’t wear aids in my job. NYPD—they have policies. Can’t do it.”

There was a pause—had his hearing faded out again? Maybe the aids were duds and they didn’t work. But his eyes still did, and he saw her face tighten, then:

“I am very sorry, Mr. Barton.”

She left a few minutes later after finishing upper her notes, at least not offering any more useless apologies. Clint’s fingers kept grasping at the bed sheets, wanting to scratch out the hearing aids. Phil wasn’t there to hold them, and Clint had a nasty feeling that he knew why.  

* * *

 

 

Timing always was a bitch for Clint. So of course, about two weeks after they had finished the move, New York City was attacked by aliens.

Clint had been on the ground on the South side, directing traffic out of the city and blocking entering cars (because some people were just too stupid to have some common sense), trying to ignore the rip in the sky where an army of monsters was pouring in. The orders over the radio were a mess—repeated then contradicted, shouting over one another, the rank undercurrent of fear to it: _we are not alone_.

Thank god Phil had been on a business trip, away from the city. He’d kept his head down, focusing on the task at hand, ignoring the moment when his radio quieted and a single voice took over, calm and steady. Later he’d find out that Captain America had temporarily taken control of the police force, guiding officers to where they needed to be, probably saving hundreds of lives in the process.

But not the life that mattered most to Clint. Because after the battle was over and New York saved, after he’d crawled back to HQ for check-in, he was approached by his leading officer and told that Phil was missing.

The next three weeks passed in a blur. Phil was among hundreds of missing people, and despite Clint’s access, the advantages he had in getting questions answered that most of the desperate people littering police stations and government buildings didn’t have, he wasn’t getting any answers. Trying to get news attention didn’t help weither; nobody was interested in where a middle-aged accountant had gone, not when there were bodies to be pulled out from under the rubble, not when superheroes could be seen in the sky. He’d screamed about it, into his pillow late at night when he couldn’t sleep—how nobody seemed to care that Phil, _Phil_ , was missing, that somebody so important could be gone.

Then a miracle had happened. A phone call, at 3AM, twenty-two days after the Chitauri attack. From a local hospital in a suburb, way outside the city, telling him about a John Doe there who was had his name.

It took three months for Phil to finally leave the hospital, still using a wheelchair but strong enough to get into the car by himself, Clint hovering anxiously nearby. He hadn’t wanted Clint’s help, which hadn’t surprised him since Phil was never the kind of guy who liked getting taken care of.

He hadn’t fallen once.

* * *

 

 

 

“I’m just saying—nothing against a guy getting some action, but—” 

Waking up this time was much easier, probably since he’d been more dozing than truly asleep. It felt like all the drugs they were pumping into him were finally wearing off. Clint opened his eyes and slowly dragged himself onto his ass, leaning heavily on his elbows. Where was he?

Shit. SHIELD Medical. Phil. Hearing aids.

He looked around and saw white. White curtains separating groups of beds, white linens scratchy under his palms, white coats drifting around the place. He had two neighbors, the one to his left chatting on a phone (too quiet for Clint to hear), the one on the right asleep. Across the hall were five more beds, all full of whispering people. Clint wondered where this was—a temporary tent set up near the prison? An actual building? A hospital that SHIELD was squatting in?

And where the hell was Phil?

Then, to his left, everyone’s head began to turn.

Ironman strolled into the waiting room, followed closely by Captain America. The room immediately fell into a hush, then broke out into whispers as everyone stared at their rescuers. Clint stared too—he’d seen Ironman during the fight, of course, and the guy seemed a little awkward now that he wasn’t flying around and shooting bad guys in the face. Captain America, of course, was larger than life, even in real life.

“Hey, there you are—no offense, but whenever I leave unregistered Stark tech lying around, somebody snaps it up and opens up a rival company.” Ironman gestured at Clint’s belt, where the transmitter he’d given him was still clipped. Clint unhooked it and tossed it at the man/machine, who easily caught it and turned back to the captain.

“Seriously, though, is this why Agent Agent wouldn’t move into the Tower? My security is better than anything SHIELD could come up with, and obviously they need _something_ better if all this,” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the medical ward, “is going to happen. I’m offended on behalf of my own building.”

 “He probably just wanted privacy, Tony. That’s a problem you’ve always had.” Without the mask, Rogers was looking ridiculously heroic, cleft chin and all.

“Psh. More like secrecy—I bet Coulson’s got a secret family in every state. Like flight attendants. I’d try it too, except Pepper would take my balls and—”

“Clint Barton?” Some guy, in grimy body armor that stuck out in the sterile setting, was looking at home. “I need you to come with me.”

Both Rogers and Stark were looking at him. They knew his name then---Phil had told them, but not earlier than he’d had to, because judging from their conversation they obviously hadn’t known that Phil was married.

He only had a few moments to enjoy the shocked look on their faces before Rogers profusely apologized and dragged Stark away, who was now shouting, “Wait, I have questions! Does Agent Agent only own suits? Does he really watch Supernannies? Does he call out Captain America’s name in bed—”

Minutes after Stark had left, Clint found himself being herded down the hall—as if he was being rushed out. Thankfully they’d brought him clothing, a T-shirt and sweats and fresh underwear (which was desperately needed); but unfortunately both had the SHIELD logo on it. As they walked (or in Clint’s case, shuffled) towards the hangar _where a private jet was waiting_ , he overhead some conversations from the groups of agents standing around.

“—so he set up a chain reaction using their own perimeter explosives—”

“Damn, wonder why though don’t send Coulson into the field more often?”

“Well, I heard he used to be the go-to for undercover stuff—”

And from another group a little further down.

“I heard Coulson himself flew down to direct operations.”

“Huh, guess it was personal. Usually the director keeps him close--”

He tried to ignore it as he was herded into the jet—which didn’t look how he expected. It didn’t look all that aerodynamic, though the grinding rumble that rolled out from beneath the floor as they taxied out of the hangar convinced him otherwise. A few uncomfortable minutes later, they were coasting along the cloud layer with a blindingly bright sun above them.

Clint could feel someone checking him out. He turned his head and caught the eye of a brunette in full uniform off to the side. She was vaguely familiar, probably one of the agents who’d interviewed him upon his arrival at the medical center. She looked away when she realized he had caught her, then coughed. Not that she could ignore him, anyway—but it was obvious that she was scoping out the guy Coulson was married to. He was almost giddy with it, the exhaustion kicking in again: he was probably her boss’ boss’ boss.  

Setting off explosives. Taking down a base. Going undercover. And he used to make fun of Phil when he put bandaids on papercuts.

Clint thought that he might vomit.

It felt like everyone in the jet was looking at him now, though he was probably just crazy. It reminded Clint of a sitcom, this whole “meet the parents” vibe.  Clint hadn’t encountered that situation before. Phil had no living family for Clint to meet, which worked out just fine since Clint didn’t have anybody left alive who really mattered. He hadn’t met any of Phil’s co-workers either, though maybe that was Clint’s fault—he’d always pictured Phil sitting in a cubicle all day and not talking to anyone until he got home. That was ridiculous of course, Clint saw that now.

He burned a little under their stares, wondering what she thought. Did she know, that Clint was Phil’s dirty little secret? Or maybe SHIELD did know about Clint Barton, had helped Phil keep him in the dark. It must have been easy, when Clint was too lazy, too stupid to question it.

The jet broke through the cloud barrier. Looking through one of the tiny windows, filled with thick plastic, Clint could see a building below. It looked nondescript, all greys and blacks, until the pilot announced their arrival at SHIELD headquarters. With that, the jet began to lose altitude rapidly, dipping randomly and turning Clint’s stomach.

But it was a familiar feeling—flying high, the spotlight washing everything out until it was just him and the chalked-up bar. Releasing his grip and feeling momentum carry him forward like a bird. That moment, right before the fall.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the reviews! Again, I always appreciate feedback. 
> 
> I promise, I'll stop tormenting Clint soon. Phil will show-up in the next chapter as well, once I figure out how to write that particularly awkward conversation.


	4. Confrontation

The alien attack on New York was the beginning of the end.

It hadn’t seemed that way at first—hell, the first few weeks after they’d reunited had reminded Clint of the beginning of their marriage. All breakfast in bed, Clint switching to the night shift so that he could take Phil to his medical appointments, long hours spent watching TV and laughing over the sappy romance movies Clint secretly loved. They didn’t talk about the weeks when Phil had been missing—like a lot of people who’d survived the attack, they’d just skipped over the topic whenever it came up. Probably not healthy, but Clint had thought that maybe that was for the best. When Phil returned to work and Clint picked up the day shift, he felt like their lives were going back to normal again.

But somewhere along the way things began to unravel. It was small changes, at first. Phil spending more time at the office, sometimes leaving for business trips that swallowed him up for weeks at a time. Clint was busy too, of course, since cleaning up after the Chitauri invasion was going to take years, if not decades—but.

God, the arguments. They’d fought before, but always in quick bursts that burnt out in a day or too. And never over the things they were fighting about now: Clint’s outburst that moving to New York was a mistake, Phil’s refusal to continue his therapy at the hospital, the way Phil didn’t get along with Clint’s new friends at the station. The way Phil was never there any more, the way every tiny thing seemed to annoy him.

And then: the longer silences, the weeks where they barely had a conversation, this resentment that seemed to linger in the air like a bad smell.

Almost dying could change someone, Clint knew. He’d seen it in fellow officers who’d found themselves looking down the barrel of a gun but managed to walk away. Some of them hadn’t come back.

But he’d never thought that Phil would be that way. His husband had always been…steady, calm, complete opposite of him. But something had changed. Maybe it was job problems—Clint hadn’t taken much interest in Phil’s career when they’d first started dating, and then suddenly it was a decade later and he still didn’t really know what Phil did all day and it was too late to ask.

It had been…maybe sobering was the word. When you woke up the next morning and the buzz was gone, leaving an acute awareness of everything you’d missed.

Clint hadn’t known what to do about it, how to balance out that unevenness. He had always been a man of action, someone who _got things done_ —but this was his foundation collapsing beneath his feet, happening so slowly that he hadn’t seen it coming.

The past few months had been more of the same—no better and no worse. He’d tried to argue about it, get it all out there; but lately Phil just seemed too tired to bite back.

And Clint was getting tired of trying.

 

* * *

 

 

Here was what Clint knew about SHIELD:

Combination of Homeland Security and the military, with a base in America but operations worldwide. Suspected for everything from the Kennedy assassination to the fall of the Berlin wall. He’d read about stuff like that on conspiracy websites, had even shown a few to Phil.

He’d never actually been to their headquarters. The “Triskelion”, one of the agents escorting him had called it. Not being a touristy person, Clint hadn’t been to Teddy Roosevelt’s island before, or DC in general. The building itself didn’t blend in the way he would have thought a superspy HQ should—it looked modern, sharp curves sweeping up into the sky in contrast to all the old-fashioned classic stuff just across the river. They probably had some kind of…shield, over the building, something missiles would just bounce off of.

God, he was tired.

Apparently this was where Phil worked, when he wasn’t at the Avengers tower in NYC.  He wondered if Phil’s office was underground, like a batcave, except that he was pretty sure Phil was some kind of higher-up, which meant he probably had real estate up high. It was funny, in a way, to imagine it: Phil lounging around in some penthouse office all day, then flying all the way back to their closet of an apartment just barely on the right side of the tracks.

Even the reception area was pretty fancy, with a wall almost entirely made of windows and polished black granite below. Along the wall opposite the security check-in was a row of busts, presumably of SHIELD’s best and brightest throughout time. Clint almost went over to see if Phil was in there, looking back at him in some heroic pose, but stopped after one of the agents told him that the busts were of agents who had died in action.  

“Agent Coulson’s office is on the forty-fourth floor.” She paused for a moment, then: “But you’ll have to enter unescorted, since none of us have clearance to be on that floor.”

Great. He was escorted to the elevator at least, and as it smoothly pushed him up to where Phil was waiting for him, he looked at his reflection in the mirrored walls. He’d been cleaned up, at least, but he still looked like crap: sides of his face swollen where the implants had been put in, little nicks all over his hands and arms, wearing a SHIELD T-shirt of all things.

He couldn’t help but remember the last time he had seen Phil, before all this shit went down.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m saying—I’m just saying, there’s no respect any more. For guys like us.” Rumlow tipped his head back and emptied his drink. “You know.”

Clint nodded slowly, head as heavy as a cannon ball on his neck. The lights overhead the bar seemed too bright so he kept his gaze down and right, to where Phil was sitting.

Or had been. Clint frowned and looked around the bar, trying to spot Phil in the dimly-lit crowd. He only saw some fellow officers, a few analysts from upstairs, and spouses. Hell, he hadn’t even planned on bringing Phil along to the party—yeah, spouses had been invited for the welcoming ceremony for the newly united New York division post-Chitauri invasion, but back in New Mexico they’d operated under a quasi-Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, and Clint hadn’t been in New York long enough to feel things out. But then, surprisingly, when Clint had mentioned it off-hand to Phil, he’d agreed to come.

Though apparently not to stay. He still couldn’t spot his husband in the crowd. Rumlow was still gesturing into thin air so Clint let him be, sinking into the crowd and searching. Finally, he spotted Phil at the back, using one of the payphones in a dark hallway leading to the bathrooms.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He could hear Phil muttering into the receiver, turned away from the bar. “Just give me fifteen minutes—”

“Leaving so soon?” He meant it—Clint wasn’t sure how he had meant it, but it had come out sarcastic and ugly.

A pause, then: “See you then.” Phil hung up and turned to Clint, putting on a weak smile. “That was work. They need me in again, maybe for a few days.” His eyes sharpened a bit, probably noticing the look on Clint’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh please.” Clint ran his hands over his face, rubbing in at the bridge of his nose and ending in his hair. Anything to break eye contact. “It’s alright. Your work is important.”

Maybe that came off as sarcastic, again, because Phil bristled.

“You know that I didn’t plan it this way, Clint.” He shrugged his suit jacket back on, having removed it only half an hour ago when they first got to the bar, Clint steering him towards the coat check with both hands.

“Yeah, sure. And it was nothing to do with you and Brock not getting along—”

Which they hadn’t. Phil had always been an Avengers fan, and they’d laid into each other when Rumlow had started the night by toasting the department-wide layoff of twenty good officers, with special mention of the SHIELD-trained agents who’d be replacing them.

“Your friend Rumlow is a complete idiot.” Phil was adjusting his tie, rebuttoning his suit jacket: getting ready to leave, regardless of how things went with Clint. “You should know better than that.” Dismissive.

Clint wanted to say…wanted to say something, anything that would hurt Phil for that. Like how Phil was always condescending, acting like Clint was still some dumb carnie without a GED. Like how Phil was practically an old man with how stubborn he was (and the age difference, that had always rankled Phil). Like how at least Rumlow had the balls to point out when there was a problem.

But the thing was, Phil was like that too. Always being blunt with Clint, fixing up problems like Clint’s broken down apartment in New Mexico (by having Clint move in), like helping Clint get a job in the NYPD (when it was Phil who insisted they move to New York in the first place), like going back to work after the Chitauri incident with barely any physical or psychiatric therapy (while Clint had spent seven months in recovery).

No, Clint was the coward, unwilling to say anything when things were going bad. 

So Clint stayed silent. They watched each other in the dark, Phil not leaving but not approaching Clint either. He hadn’t been able to make eye contact, instead looking at the way the shadows fell on Phil’s face, hollowing his cheeks and bringing out deep lines in his forehead. He looked different—not unattractive, not cruel—but tired. Like he was tired of Clint.

So Clint bit it all back, swallowed it down and watched Phil leave, pressing a perfunctory kiss to his cheek and stepping away into the dark night. He was sick that night, and the next morning too, practically hugging the toilet and wondering where the hell that thought at come from.

 

* * *

 

 

Phil’s office looked like a page out of a home furnishing magazine. The carpeting was tasteful, the desk pristine and made of walnut, and there was a large bay window set behind the desk that showed off a view of nighttime downtown New York. Clint was pretty sure that his boss’ boss’ boss didn’t have an office like this.

And there, seated behind the desk in a thousand dollar chair, was Phil.

“Take a seat, Clint.” Phil gestured at the roll-in chair in front of the desk. It didn’t match the rest of the décor—probably a new addition. Maybe Phil (sorry, Assistant Director Phillip J. Coulson, according to the nameplate on the door) didn’t get a lot of visitors.

“First time I see you after being held hostage for three days, and that’s what you have to say?” Clint didn’t mean to start things off that way, but he’d been on edge for hours now. Seeing Phil didn’t help—if anything it made things worse, to see _his_ Phil in this place, wearing a suit that had probably been tailored for him. He wasn’t Dorothy, and he wanted out and back to Kansas.

Phil’s face crumpled. “Clint…”

“You have no idea how sorry I am. I never meant for you to get involved in this, least of all to get hurt.” Phil looked sorry, at least, but Clint wanted more. It was horrible, but he wanted Phil to look worse than that. He took aim.

“Oh, just a few days of torture. Oh, and my hearing’s shot. Really, just run of the mill kind of stuff.” He slumped down into the chair, feeling the press of his new hearing aids (courtesy of SHIELD). It was hard, so hard, to meet Phil’s gaze but he did it anyway. Nothing he saw there made him feel better.

“Clint, SHIELD will talk to the NYPD about that. You’re not going to lose your job—”

“I don’t _need_ help from fucking SHIELD, Phil!” The outburst was unexpectedly loud and Clint shut up, grinding his teeth.

“…Obviously, you’re upset with me. I understand that—really, I do.” Phil clasped his hands together on the desk, giving Clint a flashback to the first time they met. Funny how little things changed, even ten years later.

“What do you want me to do?” Phil said, softly. “How can I make this right?”

God, and now Clint felt like the dick, when Phil looked so guilty like that. Like somehow the whole situation was Clint’s fault, even though he knew Phil didn’t mean to make him feel that way.

“Just—be straight with me. Tell me what’s going on with you and SHIELD. And the Avengers.”

Phil sat back. “I can do that,” He said with a sigh.

“I started working with SHIELD in 1985, after I was honourably discharged from the Rangers. My recruitment was due to a good word from an old Rangers partner, Nick Fury, who is currently the director of SHIELD. My specialty is in strike team management for covert field operations, both domestic and abroad. I am also currently heading the Avengers Initiative, both in initial recruitment and field deployment.”

“And your job in New Mexico?”

“An undercover operation to investigate rumors of a Hydra cell operating in the New Mexico desert. I still worked in the field at that time.” He smiled a little bit. “I always wanted to be a teacher. Different path, you know? It was nice.”

Okay. So Phil had always worked in SHIELD. Maybe that was good—there wasn’t a moment that he missed, some transformation from accountant to secret agent that had gone unnoticed. Or maybe it was worse, because—great, because Phil had been lying from the start. 

And he was starting to get angry again. Where the hell did Phil get off, thinking that telling him _now_ would make everything better?

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“I had hoped…” The lines around his mouth grew deeper, made him look older. “That by keeping you in the dark, you wouldn’t become involved. So that you wouldn’t be in danger.”

“Because what? Because I don’t have any superpowers?” An ugly laugh fell out of Clint, landed between them. That was what guys like Rumlow, Stevens, Jenkins were so mad about—that they were being squeezed out by these super men, that there wasn’t a place anymore for the regular guys. That the stakes had been raised beyond what ordinary guys could do; that humans could only sit back helplessly, like babies or something, while demi-gods decided everything for them. That was what Clint’s friends thought—not Phil’s friends.

It wasn’t fair to blame Phil for that, but it was easy.

“It’s my fucking _job_ ,” Clint hurled back at him. “I’m a cop! Maybe I don’t run around shooting aliens or tag-teaming with ninjas, but I still deal with dangerous shit all the time! What is it, I’m not good enough to work with SHIELD? To even know that I might be in danger because of my husband’s job?”

“That wasn’t my intent, Clint. You have to know that.” Phil looked hurt, giving Clint a vicious twist of pleasure in his chest. “It got complicated—I should have told you when we first became involved, but things, the world, got complicated. There was never a good time—”

“See, it’s not just the hushing up.” Clint was on a roll now, ugly thoughts and words spilling out uncontrollably. It felt like this was his only chance to get it out there, and that if he could just dump everything out fast enough, it would settle down sooner and leave behind clear air for them both. “It’s the lack of respect. It’s as if it doesn’t even matter to you that I didn’t know anything about your job, your life. Last time I checked, spouses are _supposed_ to know everything—and what, how many secrets do you have now? Do I even know _anything_ about you?”

“Clint…” A quiet, soft tone. “You knew everything you needed to. It was enough for you, for us.” A small, sad smile. “Can’t you agree with that?”

He couldn’t. Not because of the tone, how patronizing it sounded even though Phil probably didn’t mean it that way. (And wasn’t that pathetic, hoping that Phil was still lying, meaning something different than what he said). Maybe it would sound better in a few days, once he had a chance to calm down. No, the problem was that it really wasn’t enough—it hadn’t been for the past year when everything between them had gone careful and brittle, and it wasn’t enough now.

He didn’t have to tell Phil that; he could see that Phil understood in the slumping of his shoulders. Clint didn’t know what to say in the silence, how to make things better. Finally, Phil spoke.

“You know that I can’t quit, right?” When Clint didn’t respond, he continued. “I’m needed here. You’re right, the world is changing—and it’s going to need SHIELD and the Avengers.”

And that was the thing—SHIELD did do important work. Clint knew that, even guys like Rumlow knew that. And it was more important than his marriage. Phil had obviously already figured that one out, maybe since the Chitauri. Maybe that was why he’d started to pull away, because he knew on some level that Clint, the mortgage, their joint accounts, were all too small for him. And now it was Clint’s turn.

He imagined what Phil must have thought, coming home and finding the front door open, dried blood on the frame and floor. Maybe it was what Clint was feeling now: like everything was falling apart, and there was a new, less friendly world facing him.

“Maybe we should take some time.” Phil breathed in deep, his old habit. “To let things cool down. We’re both scared after what happened, it’s late, and you need rest. We can talk more about this later.”

Clint nodded along, not trusting himself to speak. Phil was right, of course. Clint was exhausted, had been for the last year, and the thing he wanted most right now wasn’t Phil, or his job. What he wanted most was to just find a bed and get some sleep.

And maybe that was how he knew that this was the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review!


	5. Blind date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late author is very late

 

“PB, this is anchor 7, closing in on Northside. We’re at 14th and Lionel, three sides with hostiles, requesting back-up.”

That was their third request in five minutes, and so far all they’d heard back was static. Some kind of EMP had been set off about an hour ago, shutting down most of downtown and signaling the NYPD that shit was going down, and their communication had been crippled since.

Which meant they hadn’t received any warnings when they’d arrived at the scene and found killer robots crawling over the streets.

_Seriously,_ Clint thought to himself whenever he sighted over their make-shift barricade made from a turned over police car. _Complete bullshit_.

They’d been doing well initially, but the problem was that the robot army just never stopped coming—every time you took one down, another three popped up. Slowly they’d been pushed up against a wall, unsure of where the other teams were, where Clint’s partners and friends were, and whenever Clint looked over the edge of the car he saw a shining sea of metal.

Then, off to the side, he saw civilians. Of course, it was a mother with a baby, because of course it wouldn’t be some jackass drunk who woke up at the worst possible time—not that drunks weren’t worth saving, but Clint was going to have to go out in the open for a rescue and that shit just wasn’t right.

He shouted back to their squad leader then jumped over the wall, not waiting for a reply. The civilians were thirty yards away and he sprinted it, occasionally unloading his pistol into robot faces. Thankfully the public library was nearby and he ushered the pair in, where a group of people were already hiding away from the broken windows. Probably as safe as they could get, at the moment. He turned and crouched behind a Humvee, trying to find adequate cover.

Then he heard the familiar whine of repulsors.

Clint gritted his teeth. That was an automatic response to the Avengers now, as much a reflex as squinting when the sun was in his eyes. It was nothing personal—hard to make it personal when you’d never even _been introduced_ , but every time he saw the team of superheroes he was reminded of who their handler was. Whose voice was on their comms, putting them into position when the NYPD was in over their heads.

Goddammit.

He ducked back behind the car door when a streak of light slashed over him, neatly slicing off the roof of the Humvee. His position wasn’t great: the laser-firing robot was twenty feet ahead and closing, and Clint was pretty sure that he’d seen its counterpart in his side vision to his left side. Surrounded, then. Clint carefully tucked his handgun back into its holster and prepared to run for it.

Then, of course, he heard the whirr of Captain America’s shield, giving him a millisecond heads-up before it flew over his head, snapping into the robot’s (neck?). The doombot staggered back, grasping ineffectually at its head before collapsing to the ground. The impact sent a dull rumble through the ground, rocking Clint unsteadily back onto his heels.

The shield arced back through the air. Behind him he heard a brief thud as someone jumped into the perimeter, catching the shield neatly. “You alright?”

Clint glanced at the shadow cast in front of him—tall, statuesque, holding a hand out—and climbed to his feet before turning around. “I’m good, but my unit’s still boxed in at 14th and Lionel.”

“We’ve cleared the area, but…” Captain America paused. “Oh, you’re Coulson’s…”

Husband? Lover? Well, ex-lover. “Yeah.” Clint scratched at the back of his head. The awkward silence went on for another minute or two before Clint finally broke it. “I’ll head over there then, see if we’re ready to start clean-up.”

“Let me just—” The captain reached for the comm on his belt but was cut-off when an ear-splitting shriek ripped through the air. Clint doubled over at the pain lancing through his head and tore out his hearing aids. The shriek dimmed to a dull hum and he straightened.

In front of him, Captain America was on the ground, hands clasped over his ears. The other emergency responders in the area were also down, leaving Clint the only one standing. He turned, trying to find the source of the noise—hard without his hearing aids—but figured out it was coming from one of the downed robots 300 yards Southwest of his position, one red eye still blinking.

But even as he watched, the robot suddenly staggered to its feet, metal parts flying onto its frame as if pulled in by magnets. Before his eyes it assembled into something bigger than the others—he began to slowly back away as it grew in height and sheer volume, rapidly reaching the size of a semi.

Immediately the theme song from Transformers began running through his head—he always thought about stupid shit when important stuff was going on. Like the giant killer robot, which was now moving in his direction on a set of newly functioning legs. The ground rattled beneath his feet with each bounding leap it took, though without his hearing aids he couldn’t hear a thing.

“Shit!” He grabbed the captain by the elbow and pulled, forcing him to his feet. “We’ve gotta go!” Except the soldier’s eyes were still screwed shut, because the robot was still letting out that damned noise, Clint guessed, and instead of trying to pull the captain up Clint reached down and yanked his sidearm free from its holster. A magnum 5.1. Three bullets.

The first shot pinged off the armor covering the robot’s central mass—where the torso would be on a person—and disappeared somewhere over the horizon. The second struck at where two armored plates met at the knee, but the robot didn’t even slow. Clint drew in a sharp breath, grounding himself in a silenced world, watching the approaching doombot that would kill him.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. That wasn’t quite working out for Clint, because as the monster approached all he could think about was the times with Phil, the good and the bad, all the ways he’d screwed up until the end when it was Phil’s mistake that ended everything. But maybe whoever said that quote was right—because it was his life with Phil that had been the best, and that was the only life that mattered, in the end.

Clint sighted his target one last time, so that at least he’d go down fighting. But even as he raised the gun, he remembered something—how the robot had assembled itself. All the visible parts were added on as it grew—but at the start, it had been broken, with one working eye.

He aimed, and fired. The robot wobbled, driven forward by its momentum, before collapsing to its knees, falling apart as it went. A metal wheel rolled toward Clint before falling onto its side at his feet.

 

* * *

 

 

Clean-up was always the boring part; therefore, most of the Avengers split once the cool parts were over. After two hours they’d finally made some headway, and Clint was ready to clock off and get home.

Then a hand slapped down on his shoulder. It was Paulson—big guy, been on the force a year longer than Clint. Got a little weepy when he had too much to drink, but otherwise a good guy in Clint’s book.

“Hey—there’s some men in black, want you to debrief.” He jerked his head and Clint turned, eyeballing the three agents 20 yards away. They looked a little like Secret Service with the comms neatly tucked behind each ear, draped in midnight black suits that, in Clint’s opinion, caught more attention than drew away.

SHIELD, then.

“I don’t take orders from SHIELD, last time I checked.” Clint shrugged Paulson’s hand off. “They can get my statement from my superior.”

Paulson shook his head in sympathy. “Chief gave them the okay. You know protocol—once the Avengers get involved, SHIELD takes over chain of command.”

Paulson knew a little more about Clint’s gripe with SHIELD than anyone else on the force. Probably because he’d been there the first time they’d encountered SHIELD after Clint had moved to Bedstuy—long story, involving sinkholes—and had noticed the way Clint had skulked away once the scene was clear. At least the guys who hated SHIELD/the Avengers tried to stick around and look for opportunities to show agents up. But he’d had too many open wounds both literally and figuratively to stand being in the vicinity of agents.

“Well, I’m off the clock as of twenty minutes ago, so they can wait till I’m on-duty again.” Which would be in roughly 23 hours, but Clint was childish enough to enjoy each and every one of those SHIELD-free hours. He slung his bag over his shoulder and stalked off, thankful that he’d parked his motorcycle a good five blocks away from the police-enclosed zone.

“Hey—hey!” Someone shouted after him. He debated just ignoring it—but Clint was a goddamn adult, and there was a difference between defending his autonomy and being an asshole. He turned and immediately regretted it when he saw Captain America headed his way, still in uniform. A few patrolling officers turned to look, because nobody ignored Captain America. 

The captain skidded to a halt in front of Clint. He wasn’t wearing his mask anymore, so Clint was treated to his stupidly handsome face, looking all patriotic and chiseled. He held out a broad hand. “Before you go, I just wanted to thank you.”

The guy looked so goddamn earnest that Clint didn’t have a choice. He reached out and shook the hand, biting back a groan at how childish Clint’s hand looked in comparison. Jesus Christ, was the guy even human?

“No thanks needed.” Clint hoped to escape with that but the captain hung on.

“You saved my life. I think a thank you is the least that I can do.”

Seriously? “Just doing my job.” He tried to pull his hand away, but the guy’s grip was strong it was like he stuck his hand into concrete. “‘Protect and serve’, you know.”

“Yes, I do.” Finally, Clint’s hand was released. “It’s a hard job, working with the NYPD. Coulson’s told us a lot about your work.”

Insulting Clint’s mother would have gone over better. Clint swung a leg over his motorbike, breaking eye contact in favor of adjusting his mirrors. He didn’t want to think about Phil telling Captain America about him, about Clint’s job and hobbies and shit—but it shouldn’t have surprised him. Honestly, he’d never imagined Phil meeting the real Captain America, but if he had then he would have known that Phil wouldn’t keep secrets from his childhood hero. Even if he could from Clint.

“Listen--can we talk somewhere private? It won’t take long…”, the captain eyeballed Clint’s ride, “but it’s important.”

That sounded about as inviting as getting interrogated by the waiting SHIELD agents, which was more and more likely to happen the longer Clint hung around. It wasn’t like Rogers had authority over him, at least when Clint was off-duty (though when he was on-duty, all bets were off for any cop).

He imagined Captain America ordering him around, with Phil in turn giving _him_ orders, and grit his teeth. “Don’t have the time, but you can check with my personal assistant and schedule something.” The motorcycle came to life under him and he kicked off, only for Captain Asshat to grab onto the handlebar and yank it back. For a minute the engine was running but the guy was _still_ hanging on, _Jesus Christ_.

“Seriously?!” He flipped the ignition back and glared up (jeez the guy was tall). “Who the hell do you think you are? No, wait, you’re Captain America, you can do whatever you damn well please—”

“I know that you don’t owe me your time,” The guy didn’t even look tired from his superhuman feat. “But I think that you owe it to Coulson to at least hear me out.”

The words hung between them for an awkward moment, neither willing to back down. But no matter how much he hated himself for it, Clint couldn’t forget what he owed Phil.

“Fine.” He yanked his helmet off and tied it to the opposite handlebar. “I’m leaving in thirty minutes, got it? No more.”

Captain America looked relieved and jerked his head behind him. “We can get coffee over there.”

Great.

 

* * *

 

 

Clint allowed himself a long look at Captain America’s drink choice.

“Frappuccino?”

Cap—Steve, he’d insisted on—shrugged. “I like to try new things.”

No kidding. Clint had ordered black coffee, no room for milk, in an effort to out-macho Rogers and now felt like an idiot. But he choked it down anyway, since at least the burn of it kept him awake after hours dodging robots on the streets of Manhattan. He leaned forward a bit, and his foot accidentally hit the Shield™, which Rogers had left leaning against the rickety, dust-covered table. The shield fell over, filling the emptied café with a long, drawn-out ringing like a flipped coin making a landing.

How was this his life?

He waited a little longer for Rogers to say something, and finally blurted out, “So I don’t really know how first dates went back in the 40’s, but nowadays people usually make conversation.”

That got a little smile out of Rogers—the guy was probably used to fans making nervous 40’s-related jokes around him.

“You know, you’re exactly what I expected Coulson’s spouse to be like.”

“Didn’t tell you much about me, huh?”

“Not until after the Hydra incident. Before then, we didn’t really know much about him. Stark was convinced that the man was really a SHIELD-designed robot.”

Clint snorted at that.

“I know it’s ridiculous. No man comes from nowhere, but we really were surprised to find out he was married. It all fell into place after we found out, though, why he didn’t move into the Tower or the Helicarrier, why he was always turning down Tony’s offers to find him a date. It even explains why it was so hard for him to take on his position as liaison to the Avengers.”

That last part stuck out for Clint. “He didn’t want the job?”

Rogers raised his eyebrows. “Is that a surprise to you?”

“Give up the chance to fight off aliens and monsters and Red Skull? Phil? Not a chance.” Rogers’ eyebrows went up at the name-dropping and Clint shrugged. “Phil’s always been a fan.”

Captain America seemed startled by that, and Clint felt triumphant for a moment— _see, I know Phil too, things guys on the street wouldn’t_ —then felt like an idiot. Who the hell cared if Clint knew a few stupid facts; Phil hadn’t told him that he’d _met_ Captain America.

Rogers went on. “No, he didn’t want the job. He told Director Fury that Agent Hill—you haven’t met—should do it. Nobody accepted it, of course. Coulson was the brain behind the Avengers Initiative, and without everything he did during the Chitauri invasion our team would never have formed. It had to be him.”

He took a sip of his girl drink. “I think he knew that, too. Getting the team started was hard enough, but keeping it going—figuring out how it fit in with SHIELD and the American government and the UN, how we could do our job, what our job even was—I don’t think anybody knew how to answer those questions. Coulson had a vision for what the Avengers were supposed to be, and we needed him around to make sure that vision happened.”

And of course, that was exactly the kind of thing Phil would go for. America needs you, fulfill your duty as a citizen, all that kind of crap they put on war bond and recruitment posters back in the 40’s—they’d never worked on Clint, but they spoke to the very soul of Phillip J. Coulson. He’d grown up surrounded by Captain America posters and comics, all telling him that to put your country before yourself was your duty—what else could Clint expect?

“He finally agreed, but with stipulations. Fury wanted him to live in Stark Tower to keep tabs on us and accompany the team on all missions, but Coulson ruled all that stuff out. He still went on missions, of course, but for the long-distance ones he stuck with satellite communication, keeping himself in New York.

“We thought he was just trying to keep his personal life separate from his professional life. Making that distinction’s important—I don’t think I’ve ever managed it. This kind of life sort of guarantees that.”

Especially for Steve Rogers. Clint took in the famous face, the cowl, the shield. He couldn’t imagine the guy going out on a date, or grocery shopping, or going to see a movie. It reminded Clint of the way he’d hide whenever he saw one of his teachers outside school as a kid, back when he was still in school—objectively he _knew_ that they had to buy food or go to the library sometimes, but seeing one in the grocery aisle always freaked Clint out.

“Well, that’s the problem for cops too.” True—it was hard to go out with non-work friends to bars. Everyone always thought you were out to cite them for something. “Not just Avengers.”

Rogers nodded. “Of course. And you guys don’t wear masks.”

“We shouldn’t.” But that reminded Clint that this guy was an Avenger. Clint’s coworkers would shit their pants if they saw Clint chatting with the guy over a cup of coffee. He must have tensed up, cause the captain reacted.

“I know there’s a…an unwelcome sentiment, among some police officers, about the Avengers.” He seemed deeply uncomfortable now, staring into his cup rather than looking at Clint. “And SHIELD in general. I don’t know if that’s something….that’s between you and Phil, or not.”

Maybe it was. Clint wasn’t sure anymore. But the problem, really, wasn’t SHIELD—though it would have been nice to blame that. Easier to say that to Captain America and see him squirm, to make things that easy. But Phil was never easy. 

He looked up and realized that the captain was watching him.  

“We were having problems before that.” Clint made it sound dismissive, final. Rogers’ shoulders slumped a bit.

“I see. I was wondering if that was why he didn’t want the team getting involved.” He stared into his coffee, rotating the cup between his hands. “A few of us asked—honestly, Coulson doesn’t know that I’m with you right now, and I doubt he’d be happy about it. He asked that we give you space.”

Great. Clint wondered what the alternative would have been—Iron man coming over for Sunday barbecue? Black widow accosting him at the laundromat? 

“So I’m sorry that I’m invading his privacy, and yours. I thought that…well, I guess I don’t really know what I was planning to tell you.” He scratched behind his head, looking a little sheepish. “Maybe just...I think he thought he had to make a choice. But I don't think he had to." 

 

* * *

 

 

Clint had the distinct impression that he was being followed. He didn’t see anybody suspicious, aside from the guy in spandex on the L train who managed to recite the entire Declaration of Independence from the time Clint boarded to when he got off at Bedstuy. Probably just a schizophrenic, even with the spandex—but who knew, these days. New York City was crawling with super villains these days, and the NYPD had seen more monsters than muggers in the past 6 months. They had a goddamn protocol for killer robots, for Christ’s sake.

There’d been some 60-minutes report on the phenomenon a few weeks back. There’d been a bunch of stats on it, stuff that made Clint’s eyes cross—the point was, according to some heavily bearded doctor-of-superheroes (and who knew that existed?), while the existence of superheroes like the Avengers had dropped ordinary crime by up to 50% in most counties country-wide, rates of ‘extraordinary events’ had skyrocketed.

_They were supposed to make things better,_ some pundit had said, gesticulating wildly to the camera, _but look at what they brought out of the dark._

Nobody was at his apartment though. Clint had spent the weekend after his release from SHIELD stomping around Bedstuy looking for a new place. Agent Coulson had retreated to SHIELD headquarters (classified), but the idea of being alone in their apartment, probably under SHIELD surveillance while he’d been completely clueless the whole time…the ugly feeling that had given him usually got him into fights. So he’d retreated instead. His new place was cheaper, not in the best area, but there was something comforting in that. It reminded him of life before Phil—ugly and dirty, but at least all the ugly stuff was out in the open.

Clint retreated to the bedroom. Even after six months it still felt like he was in a hotel, sheets sterile and weird-smelling. He hadn’t brought over anything from their old place, partly out of crazy paranoia about hidden cameras, partly because he was a grown man, dammnit, who could buy his own damn linens.

He kicked off a boot so hard that it smacked into the wall and fell to the floor.

Then he realized what it was. His fucking bow—just sitting there on the tabletop. And strung too, because Phil didn’t know shit about archery or bow warpage. Even if he was a secret agent—bows weren’t the same as guns.

There was a note on it; a post-it note, actually, which made Clint roll his eyes. He used to find those things everywhere, once even behind the toilet seat lid after Clint had skipped his week of bathroom cleaning the third time. Phil’s tidy scrawl was shorter this time (unlike the essay Clint spent a good five minutes reading, dick half out and mouth open in astonishment).

‘Just in case.’

Clint spent a long time staring at the note. Maybe, if he lived in a movie set, there’d be some deeper meaning, some inside joke that only he and Phil would get. He’d laugh and smile softly, reminiscing on the good times, and they’d reunite on a bridge or during a crazy firefight. They’d renew their vows, honeymoon in Hawaii since they didn’t go anywhere the first time, and they’d pick up right where they left off.

(Him and Phil, they couldn’t go back. And Clint didn’t want to either, not if it meant Phil lying about everything and Clint being in the dark.)

Maybe it didn’t have to mean anything. Hell, Clint couldn’t believe that he’d forgotten the bow back at their place—he’d saved up and bought it years before they got married, and it was one of the few things that had been all his. Maybe that was why he’d brought it back—a way to finally end things between them, the last Dear John letter, the last box of your ex’s stuff.

But Clint knew (or thought, at least) that Phil wasn’t the type to do that. From the beginning, the way Phil had kept calling him into his tiny office, Phil had always done the big things in person. So, instead, maybe this was just Phil’s way of trying.

Later that night, back in the weird-smelling sheets he’d got from the dollar store, Clint thought that maybe he should be trying harder too. 

“Goddammit, Phil.” He muttered to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably one more chapter after this. Thank you for any feedback :)


	6. Endings and Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you to Hikaru1308 for providing a translation! You can follow the link at http://www.mtslash.org/thread-202902-1-1.html

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's finally done! A big thank you to my readers. It's been a lot of fun, and I look forward to writing more Clint/Coulson in the future!

A week after Clint’s blind date with Captain America, he was guilted into dropping by the boys’ home for a surprise afternoon out. The Mayweather Boy’s Home was a group foster home in downtown Bedstuy and was usually bursting with 15-20 foster boys, ages eight to eighteen. The social worker running the place, May Parker, routinely recruited NYPD officers to visit. Clint had assumed it was to provide the kids with some kind of a role model, which was why he was surprised to constantly be called in by May, who’d apparently taken a shine to him. 

Or maybe she’d heard about his marriage problems, since upon his arrival she ushered him into the warm kitchen and forcefed him oatmeal raisin cookies. Not that he minded, but whenever he spent too long in the place all the kids would start pestering him. 

“Is that a real gun?” 

“Have you ever killed anyone?” 

“Did you ever catch a bank robber?” 

“Would you arrest me if I stole candy?” 

“Would you arrest me if you caught me smoking pot?” 

And so on. He didn’t get the fascination, especially since they’d all met the Avengers once on a field trip up to New York City. But still, every time he visited they all came running, to the point that he’d learned all their names. 

He ran through their names during their game of pick-up basketball in the backyard with the older boys, who were good, but not quite as good, as Clint. The tall one was Peter, of course, May’s nephew and first foster child after his parents had died. He usually spent their pick-up games making fun of Clint for being an old man with creaky knees, and Clint usually retaliated by intercepting all his passes and going for the slam dunk. 

The look on Peter’s face sent a warm feeling through him, every time. 

The annoying one, Peter’s friend, was Pietro—from Slovakia and liked to pretend he didn’t know English, though Clint had caught on after catching the kid laughing at Jerry Springer. That punk. 

And more—all good kids, all reminding Clint of what his own childhood was like, and why they deserved a good chance in life. 

The game finally ended, 55-53 (Clint had won, of course, though the margin shrank every month), and they all ended up in the driveway around Clint’s squad car. He watched them out of the corner of his eye while reviewing underage drinking laws with the older kids, making sure they didn’t start scratching the paint off or something. One of them was looking into the windows, probably checking to see if there were any criminals inside. 

“What’s that?” 

The kid who’d been peeking into the windows of his squad car was pointing into the backseat, where Clint had tossed some old gear (one pro of being off custody duty—more space in the backseat). Nothing interesting but gym shoes and—oh. 

“It’s a compound bow.” The other boys grouped around to take a look, pressing their faces up against the windows. A few hung back behind Clint but were still peeking. He doubted that any of them had seen anything like it before—archery was sort of out of left field in the sporting world. He pushed forward and opened the door, pulling the bow and quiver full of safety arrows out. “Wanna check it out?” 

There was some enthusiastic whooping around him, but the small, careful smile on the youngest boy made up his mind. 

Clint ended up spending his whole day off on the target range at the YMCA, pulling off trick shots and resting between draws, letting the kids try to draw the bow (not possible when he left it in first gear, being a 100-pound draw). He let them practice with a few safety arrows, using the paper targets provided by the range (themes included deer, bulls-eyes, and Chitauri-shaped outlines) and correcting their stances. It had been years since Clint last spent time on a range and it threw him back: the dry air taking on the musty scent of hay from the elephant’s pen, the linoleum floor feeling like the clay dirt under the top tent. 

A kid tugged on his arm and pulled him back. 

One of the social worker finally came to liberate Clint, rounding them all up with promises of lasagna. She smiled warmly at Clint, gaze lingering on his exposed arms and neck, but Clint just nodded back and headed to the lobby to pay for the range time. Some of the kids complained as he left, guilting Clint into promising a repeat trip the next month. 

“You’re telling the truth, right? You’re gonna come back and teach me how to draw it?” One of the younger ones, maybe 8, piped up, tugging at his arm. 

“Of course he is.” Peter said. “It’s Clint.” 

Something tightened in Clint’s chest and he nodded, sharply, and turned back towards the front desk. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Clint got home, he set the bow back onto the dinner table. He stared at it, lost in thought. 

Phil had left a phone number on the note, along with the bow. Clint had already memorized it, but he still had the paper in his hands, creases smoothed out from the way his fingers had worried over it. 

It was easy. Just pick up the phone, dial in the number, talk to him. 

But Clint didn’t want to do this over the phone. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHIELD headquarters looked just as oppressive and unfriendly in the morning as it did at night. Worse, actually; the morning sunlight was absorbed by the dull grey of the building’s walls, only to flash off the likely double-sided windows. It made the place hard to look at. 

It was harder to look at Phil. But Clint did it anyway, having made his way all the way up back to Phil’s office.

He looked tired. 

“I was surprised to hear from you,” Phil said. His desktop was covered in papers, layers, and it shifted under his hands. “But I’m glad that you called. I need to apologize for Captain Rogers. It wasn’t appropriate for him to approach you. I have explicitly instructed the Avengers to cease any communications, barr an emergency situation.” 

“Thanks.” Clint shifted uncomfortably. Awkward, very awkward. “But that’s not why I came here.” 

Why he’d come, Clint wasn’t sure. He thought he knew, the day before at the boys’ home. He wished he was better at preparing stuff, the way Phil was, always organized. 

“I told you before, that I was tired of all the lying, the cover-ups, whatever,” he finally said. “And I think I deserve an answer about something. Something that Rogers said reminded me.” 

The way he’d described Phil, after the Avengers first appeared. Being unwilling to be the liaison—complete bullshit. The Phil he knew would have jumped on that chance—but Phil had been different at that point. Clint remembered that now. 

“What happened during the Chitauri attack?” Clint asked. “That’s when everything changed. You started treating me like a stranger, and apparently even Rogers noticed. What was different?” 

Phil didn’t have such a quick response to that. He paused, even his hands coming to a rest. After a moment Clint became impatient. 

“What, I’m not authorized to know?” 

Phil’s hands clenched onto the desk. 

“There’s something that I need to tell you,” Phil said. 

“After the Chitauri attack, you found me in a hospital in New Jersey.” Clint nodded. He still remembered it, how it was so small that Phil’s nurse doubled as a CT tech. “So you know that I was injured in the attack.” 

Stabbed through and through. SHIELD could probably do a lot of things, but they couldn’t hide the matching scars on Phil’s back and torso. “Yeah. You almost died.” 

“Not almost,” he said, softly. 

A lurch of fear, an echo from those first days, clenched at Clint’s throat. “What?” He could see Phil’s chest moving up and down as he breathed, the sweat on his hairline, but he still looked, trying to be sure, to find proof that Phil was alive. 

“I died,” Phil swallowed, hard. “And they brought me back.” 

Who ‘they’ was, well, it had to be SHIELD. Resurrected—Jesus Christ, literally—brought him back. “How?” 

“There was a project, several years back. We called it ‘Tahiti’. It was a way to preserve neural function in agents who had survived massive trauma while in the line of duty. A last chance, meant to save lives.” 

Maybe Clint was just stupid, but he didn’t see the problem. “Sounds like a good thing?” 

“Originally, it was. We had good intentions—that’s how it starts, isn’t it?” Phil ran a hand over his face. It looked like it hurt him, to talk about it. “But there were side effects. It was tested on SHIELD personnel—men and women who had sustained lethal injuries or illnesses, who trusted us, becoming lab rats…” 

Phil broke off there. Clint wanted to reach out, but he seemed untouchable. After a moment, Phil collected himself. 

“It was tabled after the implications of what it could do set in. I personally had all prototypes destroyed and blueprints erased from our servers.” 

“But it still existed.” 

“Something I’ve learned on the job,” Phil said softly. “Is that knowledge has staying power.” 

“And they used it on you.” 

Phil nodded. “I was the seventh subject.” 

What he’d said, earlier… “You said that there were side effects. What, what happened to the other six?”

There was a long pause. Then Phil almost smiled. 

“We thought we’d saved them. We really did.” He looked down at his hands. “The side effects…the compound rewrote their memories, created symptoms of psychosis. Their bodies were recovered, but their minds…the R&D group was forced to perform memory wipes to clear out the intrusion. At the end of it, almost nothing of the original agents’ consciousness remained.” 

It was like bad science fiction come to life. Clint stared at him, trying to make sense of it. It was Phil’s body, he was sure, his memorized map of birthmarks and scars still intact. But if Phil’s account was true, then…”Did they wipe you?” 

Phil nodded. 

“Jesus.” Clint ran a trembling hand over his face, through his hair. It was slightly damp—he’d broken out into a sweat. They were playing God in this place. 

“I retained some memories,” Phil said. The admission had taken a lot out of him; he looked pale, and his hands gripped hard onto the desk. “I still remembered you, remembered us. And enough about SHIELD to still be useful.” 

So he’d kept working for them, even after all this shit they’d put him through. 

“But why would SHIELD do this? I thought—you’re a part of SHIELD, you’ve dedicated your life to them. Why would they experiment on you?” Clint asked, desperate. 

“Because the director is my oldest friend,” Phil said, resigned. “And he didn’t want me to die.” 

Clint closed his eyes. He didn’t want Phil to die either. But he didn’t think that he’d do this—completely destroy Phil in order to save him. 

“The procedure is imperfect,” Phil almost whispered. “And we have no long-term data on the rate of reversion.” 

“Reversion?” 

“Back to the state of psychosis induced by the TAHITI compound. And, possibly, to the original sustained physical injuries.” 

So the procedure could reverse itself. Phil could go crazy, or die. 

“Is that why—” Clint’s voice broke. “Why you were so different? After the Chitauri attack?” 

“Not entirely,” Phil sounded miserable. “I was so angry—I couldn’t trust my best friend anymore, or the people I worked with. I took that out on you, I think. And I was afraid. You have no idea, you’ve always been so much braver than me,” Phil bowed his head. “I’m so afraid to die. And that’s probably what’s going to happen.” 

“No…c’mon, they’ll figure out something.” Honestly, Clint had no idea, but he felt like he had to say something to get that destroyed look off Phil’s face. He moved forward, rested his hands on Phil’s shoulders. “They’re not gonna let you die. I’m not.” 

“I can’t say the same, though.” Phil almost laughed. He reached out and pulled Clint’s hands off, folded them in front of him. “You almost died because of me.” 

It hung in the air between them. Clint breathed in and out deeply, trying to keep himself calm. “That wasn’t your fault,” he whispered. 

“It wasn’t? AIM targeted you because you were listed as being under my protection—and what good was my protection?” His gaze flitted to his hearing aids, and his expression crumpled. “Ashamed—that’s how I felt, afterward. I don’t know how I can even look you in the eye.” 

“And you thought it could happen again.” 

Phil nodded. “You’re so stubborn, so brave. But the things I’ve seen, the enemies I have—you have no idea what could happen to you. I had to make you leave.” 

“By what, pretending you didn’t care about me?” 

“If that’s what it took.” Phil pulled his hands away. 

“Didn’t work that great, though. Still dealing with robots and monsters and whatnot.” Robots, most recently. 

“I should have guessed that you couldn’t stay out of trouble. But at least now, and with your bow, you’ll stay alive.” Phil slid off the desk and stood. He had a resigned look on his face, tired, but certain. 

No. Clint wasn’t going to let it end there. 

“You know what I was thinking the other day?” Clint said, almost casually. “Yeah, being around you is probably dangerous. I’m not an Avenger, I’m not gonna come back 100% every time I’m injured.” Clint tapped at his hearing aids. “But you know what? I’m tired of having people make decisions for me. That’s the problem with superheroes—they get to decide what’s best for you.” 

He remembered Peter, Pietro, those boys who looked up to him. 

“And I agree, this whole situation is a mess. Start to finish. But it’s not—that doesn’t mean that I hate it. I told you, before, that I was angry because you kept secrets from me. And that’s true; I hate that you didn’t trust me, that you called all the shots for me. But I still don’t hate you.” 

“This was what I wanted,” Clint continued. “For you to just tell me what was going on. And now everything’s out in the open.” 

Phil looked so uncertain, brow furrowed into his familiar frown lines. He wondered how much of his memories Phil really had, if he’d looked into a mirror on the first day and wondered whose face that was. 

“You said they wiped your memories. Okay. It’s kind of the same for me—a lot of stuff I thought I knew, turns out it wasn’t true. Or at least, not entirely.” Clint took in another breath. “So we need to start over.” 

Clint let his breath out and reached out his hand. 

“My name is Clint Barton. I’m a former circus freak from Iowa, current police officer of New York. I do archery in my spare time, and sometimes I fight aliens. I fell in love with my professor ten years ago, and I’ve been married to him for three.” 

He waited for Phil’s response with an odd combination of nervousness and relief. He was a simple guy and the past few weeks had been complicated. Maybe it didn’t have to be that way. 

Phil’s lips turned up a bit, that slow smile Clint had only ever seen directed at him, and he took Clint’s hand and shook it. 

“My name is Phillip J. Coulson, and I am an agent of SHIELD.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending is intentionally a little ambiguous, but definitely meant to be hopeful for these two. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Expect occasional flashbacks either at the beginning or midway through the chapter--let me know if the layout is confusing!


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